touchdown. >> good monday morning. it's monday, november 25th, and welcome to "morning joe" as you take a live look at a cold, cold times square. it is too cold out there. with us on set, though, msnbc contributor mike barnicle. also national affairs editor for "new york" magazine and msnbc legal analyst, john heilemann. as always, tv's own willie geist. willie, your new york giants, man, they had a rough month. you know, they had a great game last night. i've got to say, though, there's a disturbing trend going on. i think -- i know how parents at the time in the 1960s when they started finding bong pipes -- >> bong pipes? did you just say bong pipes? >> in their children's rooms. so anyway, those big old -- anyway. these quarterbacks, willie -- >> pass the bong. >> and aaron rodgers, just like

the fsu quarterback, just like 1,000 quarterbacks this weekend that i saw. they were all wearing these mustaches, and they're repulsive. >> i know. i know. >> they are repulsive. >> what's that about? >> they look like they're from, you know, it's like why don't you just bring the sudafed on the sidelines and a bunsen burner, you know? come on, man. >> it's -- >> what's wrong with them? >> it's the age of the ironic mustache, and it's a dark age, i would say. >> it's ugly as hell. >> it's sort of the porn 'stache thing. >> are they really wearing those mustaches to be ironic? because it's not working. >> it's like brooklyn hipster goes to green bay. i'm not so sure it works as well in green bay. >> bunsen burner sudafed. >> you make meth. a lot of these guys look like -- >> that's all you need? >> you can make it outdoors. >> who knew?

>> appear lat it's like tom sel. >> no? it's like your local meth dealer. >> or it's like ron burgundy. >> but it's all over. every quarterback had it this weekend. >> the packers' coach is trying to do it, too. >> just stop. it's not ironic. it's not funny. >> you mean that 'stache thing you're doing? >> yes, i wanted to grow a mustache. no, you can't. we've got to raise a million dollars instead. >> i think we're going to hit a million dollars, i think, and if we do, on the air. >> a good message for all these guys. >> you are going to hit a million dollars. >> we are? >> it's looking good. so this whole idea of the slash the 'stache idea started right here. a couple of people came together in a big, huge way. mark cuban gave a lot of money, and so did personal friend of the obama campaign, donald trump. >> this is not going to help,

people. >> slash the 'stache. >> donald trump came up big for them as well. so we're very close to $1 million right now. >> how much do you think people will pay aaron rodgers to slash the 'stache? >> there is one caveat to this. >> what is that? >> the mustache thing this month is to raise awareness for men's issues like testicular cancer, prostate cancer. >> oh, it is? >> like aaron rodgers. so there's a reason some of them are wearing them. >> oh, really? >> yeah. there's some element of that. but a lot of them now keep them a little past due, i would say. >> yeah. seriously. >> all right. can we go to news? >> testicular cancer, if i take the mustaches off, take it off. take those off. they're horrible. so a lot of stuff going on this weekend. >> yes. congress, though, heads back to washington this week with just over a month left to reach a deal avoiding the so-called fiscal cliff. but there are new signs that lawmakers may be willing to compromise. a growing number of republicans are slowly backing away from grover norquist's anti-tax

pledge. saying they're open to letting revenues rise if democrats do their part in the budget talks. >> when you're $16 trillion in debt, the only pledge we should be making to each other is to avoid becoming greece, and republicans should put revenue on the table. i will violate the pledge, long story short, for the good of the country only if democrats will do entitlement reform. >> a pledge you signed 20 years ago, 18 years ago is for that congress. for instance, if i were in congress in 1941, i would have signed the declaration of war against japan. we're not going to attack japan today. the world has changed, and the economic situation is different. >> so peter king is telling us, mike barnicle, not only is he going soft on taxes, he's going soft on japan. >> i know. >> it's not just peter king on the taxes. it's a big step, don't you think? >> it's a big step. >> grover. yeah, grover's taking a big hit since the election. there's no doubt about it. i think john, you'd verify this.

number of republicans, i've talked to a couple of united states senators who said there's at least 10 to 12 republican senators who are willing to walk away from grover norquist on the tax pledge. >> it's breaking out all over. sanity is contagious. >> now, the question is, is the president going to stay where he is and go, you know what? we're going to do it my way or no other way? we're going to raise it to 90 -- to 39.6%. steve rattner had a great column yesterday. >> it's a must-read. >> you know there's more than one way to skin a cat, more than one way to raise over a trillion dollars in revenues. it doesn't just have to be the president's way. is the white house going to insist on the 39.6% tax rate, or will they consider the loophole part of it plus capital gains, plus a couple of other things? >> well, it looks to me like the white house has learned something over the course of the last four years which is that you don't start a negotiation by negotiating against yourself. >> right. >> you know, the president's taking a hard line right now

because he feels as though he campaigned on this issue pretty strongly for the past year. but the president has been willing to compromise on a lot of things in the past and, you know, it's right for him to stake out a tough negotiating position and then maybe make his way to a less strident or a less -- not strident -- but a less -- a more flexible position down the road. >> you can use the word strident not just for republicans. you can also use it for democrats. >> i don't think a position on taxes can be strident. it's where you want the top tax rate to be doesn't really have a tone to it. >> i was just going to say, willie, i don't think americans are going to be freaking out going, oh, my gosh. the president went back on his word on raising tax cuts for the rich because the marginal tax rate for rich people didn't go to 39.6%. if we close the loopholes for the rich, limit the amount of deductions, raise the capital gains tax, that will do more to bring about tax fairness than just raising the rate. and this is what has bugged me forever. a lot of people out there go, raise taxes on the rich. raise taxes on the rich.

get rid of the bush tax -- they don't realize that if you raise taxes from 35% to 39.6%, warren buffett will go, go ahead, raise taxes on me. i don't care. because he's paying at 14% because capital gains and all these other things are so low. raising the marginal tax rate does not impact the super rich because their accountants and their tax lawyers will take care of them. that's why we should go after the loopholes. >> you should ask warren about that tomorrow. >> i'm excited. >> in the large scope, raising the marginal tax rate on the top end is spur purely a symbolic t. and the reason warren buffett is able to say, well, my secretary is taxed at a higher rate than i am is not because of that rate, it's because of the capital gains rate at 15%. >> we need to ask him about that, too. and i'm sure he would agree capital gains rates, which were about 28% under bill clinton when we had the roaring '90s,

are at 15% right now. i've got to say, this is one of those areas where, when i was in congress, i wanted the capital gains rate to go down, thought it was too high at 28%. it's at 15% now. if you want to look at income disparity, you know, in part, the 15% capital gains tax rate and carried interest allows the super wealthy to get by paying a hell of a lot less than middle-class americans. >> if you're for fairness, that's where the fairness is. that's why the rich don't pay as much tax as the others. the marginal tax rate is marginal. if you raise it a couple of percentage points, it doesn't change much. if you raise that capital gains rate, that's where the big money is made. >> he did my taxes last year. >> that's fantastic. >> little-known fact, you and i wi willie together, paid 12.4% in taxes. you are a scheister. senator dick durbin says medicare and medicaid are fair

game in deficit negotiations, but insist social security should be left alone. >> social security does not add one penny to our debt, not a penny. it's a separate funded operation, and we can do things, and i believe we should now, smaller things, played out over the long term that gives it solvency. medicare is another story. only 12 years of solvency lie ahead if we do nothing. so those who say don't touch it, don't change it are ignoring the obvious. >> despite showing willingness for reform -- >> can we talk about that for a second? >> i don't want to repeat what you said. >> it's bull hockey. >> that's not what you said. >> this whole thing has been a complete farce for years. there's no trust fund. they raided that a long time ago. but the bigger point, i will because you know what? my heart has grown like the grinch's since thanksgiving. i have so much to be thankful for. >> it's been growing ever since election day, basically. >> so i'm going to be kind. first of all, senator durbin

deserves respect on this front because he was one of the few democrats that stepped forward and had the courage to go along with simpson-bowles. but secondly, he is right, though. if you're stacking these in terms of crises, it's medicare and medicaid here and social security down -- i mean, social security lives a lot longer than medicare, medicaid. >> in terms of what drives the long-term fiscal peril that the country faces, the rise in health care costs and those costs as reflected by the explosive growth of medicare and medicaid are, you know, they are where the action is. and if you can't get a handle on those things, social security is an issue, but it's a tertiary issue compared to those two programs. i think the big question that people have to get their heads around is whether the changes to -- whether you should be thinking about mostly about changes to those programs or having to get your arms around the bigger problem, which is the secular growth of health care spending in general -- >> thank god, though, john, thank god we took care of health

care reform for the first two years of the obama presidency. thank god he had the courage to step forward. you know, really, i sometimes i think i knock him too much. but i do think jesus, that president obama had the guts to step forward and stare down the special interests and curb the costs of health care in the long run so we don't have to worry about costs anymore, right? >> that level of sarcasm may or may not be justified given that the program hasn't actually -- i mean, the program has cost savings that the cbo has scored out over the next 20 years. since the program hasn't been applied and come into effect, it's very hard to judge whether or not its cost savings will be realized or not. >> in that case, we don't even have to worry about costs. why don't we sit back and see if it works. >> that is not what i said. nor what i implied. >> actually, everybody knows that it's insufficient to what lies ahead of us. >> it may be insufficient, but it may also be a very powerful first step in the right direction. >> i find it surprising we spent

two years on this show ad nauseam talking about health care reform, mike barnicle, and now you talk to everybody that comes on about what we need to do moving forward. oh, you know what? we're going to have to reform health care. because it's going to grow too fast. it's going to cost us. i thought that's what we did for two years. >> no, actually, they fought over it. >> no -- >> no, they passed it. it's historic. remember the confetti falling from the skies all over america when it passed? and republicans saying freedom has died tonight. >> it's still roughly two years away from being fully implemented in 2014. i mean, cushing the costs is the critical component of health care. you talk about curbing the cost of health care, you talk about taxation, the corporate tax rate, capital gains tax rate. you know what all of it is? all of it is about can they govern? can they govern? can we be governed? can the people in washington, d.c., in the house and the

senate and the president, can they govern? >> they have to. >> well, they have to. they absolutely have to. >> just to make a point for those who thought that the health care reform law was historic, many people -- i actually assume that most of the five people at this table think that it's a shocking thing that america is the most powerful country on earth before the health care law was passed, had a massive number of many, many millions of uninsured people in the country when every other industrialized country has universal coverage. >> right. we do all agree with that, right? >> one of the more historic things, it's going to move millions of uninsured people into the ranks of the civilized world. >> and as the president promised, also not only is he going to put 30 million people on the rolls for health care, it's also going to save us money. so it tastes great, willie, and it's less filling. >> i don't know how he's going to pull that off. >> i don't know how you pull it off. but he said it, and i believe it. that settles it. >> how does the most industrialized country in the

world -- it's saying that those two things are compatible. my god. >> why don't you move to luxembourg? >> i'm actually thinking about that. >> that would be awesome. >> yeah. >> you don't agree with the first point heilmann said? >> he's going to have to deal with the drug companies. they were critical allies. >> the hospitals, all the people that they struck the behind-the-scenes deals with. and at some point he's going to have to handle medicare and medicaid and not just say oh, it's the doctors' fault. you're not going to just go after providers. and durbin yesterday, senator durbin, yesterday said we're not going to raise the retirement age for medicare. i don't know. so willie, can i ask you something? because we're talking about health care. >> anything. >> and the democrats, they're going, this is the greatest thing ever, and they're crying, this historic cause. >> it's pretty great. >> it happened at my house. you remember right after health care passed and all the republicans on the floor and said, freedom died tonight. >> i remember shortly after it

passed, your son signed up for it. go ahead. sorry. willie, continue. >> can i make my point? >> yes, yes, you can. >> so they all went to the house floor and said, freedom died. >> was that before or after joey signed up for it? yes. >> i got nothing else to say. >> okay. >> go ahead. >> oh, was i interrupting? >> 18 times. >> oh, i'm so sorry. >> so senator john mccain softening his attacks on susan rice after vowing to block the potential nomination as secretary of state. republicans claim ambassador rice deliberately misled the country in the aftermath of the september 11th attacks on the u.s. consulate in benghazi. but rice says it's not her fault. it's the intel community's fault. she just read their talking points. although john mccain threatened a senate filibuster earlier this month, he now is open to meeting directly with ambassador rice. >> is there anything that ambassador rice can do to change your mind about it? >> sure. she can give everyone the benefit of explaining their

position and the actions that they took, and i'll be glad to have the opportunity to discuss these issues with her. >> she could conceivably get your vote for secretary of state? >> i think she deserves the ability and the opportunity to explain herself and her position. >> the white house says no decisions have been made as far as cabinet selections for the president's second term. softening. >> that was heartwarming. now, you actually wrote about rice. of course, it was in the culinary section of "new york" magazine. >> yes. >> how to prepare rice for thanksgiving, but let's talk about susan rice. >> a good snack. it's nice to see. >> it's not just a snack anymore. it's the san francisco treat, but go ahead. >> it's nice that senator mccain still has the capacity to read the writing on the wall. you know, the story over the last few days has been, you know, listening to republicans who have not taken such an aggressive position as he had taken, you know, kind of quietly saying the only way we can stop her is to filibuster her, and

that's not a fight we want as he starts to realize the rest of the republican party in the senate is not ready to do that, he's climbing down from his rather absurd position of last week. >> you know, he says, willie, he watches "morning joe" every morning. i think he heard us suggest -- >> steam coming out of his ears. >> but he realized, though, we were right. we were right again. that maybe they shouldn't kick around susan rice after this election. >> i maintain that there are real questions to be asked and answered about what happened. but the way that senator mccain and some others have gone about it, perhaps not the right way. if you really were interested in what happened, wouldn't you go after the current secretary of state who is overseeing this? >> you would do that and also go after the intel community because they gave her the talking points. as i was saying before i was rudely interrupted 17 times -- >> i thought it was 18 times. that was the 19th right there. >> and now it's 20. but did you -- because republicans after obamacare passed, freedom is over.

i don't know if it happened to you, it happened to me, the feds broke down my front door and stole my turkey. >> the battering ram. >> i said what are you doing here? they said we passed obamacare. we are going to now confiscate your turkey. right off the table. did that happen to you in >> oh, yeah. atf. >> all these republicans on the floor saying freedom died, they're right. >> it's over. >> how many times has freedom died over the past three years, four years, according to republicans on the house floor? >> it's died quite often on both sides, as i recall. >> why don't we do this. we don't we have a couple of rules. rule number one, stop calling people nazis. >> good call. >> rule number two, stop proclaiming the death of american freedom when somebody passes a bill you don't like. >> i'm for that. >> everybody, can we have that rule? mike? >> around this table, i think that makes sense. >> it may not extend beyond this table, i'm afraid. >> people are crazy. i went on the twitter this weekend. >> oh, joe! >> i did. and this is what i don't understand. >> you have the google, too?

>> john miheilemann, i've got t google, too, on the internet. i went on the twitter just to talk football. >> you've got to stay off that machine. that's a crazy machine. >> maybe you can help me because you hang out with these people. >> i try. >> while you're in the opium dens across the greater manhattan area. >> brooklyn. >> why are liberals still so angry on the twitter? i say, you won. if i were you guys and i won, i'd be, like, having a beer. they're so -- >> what are they angry about? >> they are angry about everything. like they won. they don't understand like when conservatives win, we go hunting. and drink beer. and know we're going to control at the same time, the country for four years. the liberals on the twitter, on my machine, are so angry. and it doesn't bother me. i feel sorry for them. >> you know, i love the twitter. i love that machine. it's a great -- it's a fun place with a lot of great people, but boy, i wouldn't say i restrict

it to just liberals. there's a lot of angry people out there in general. and there's nothing that changes in the outside world that makes them less angry on both sides. >> here's what i don't get. the conservatives were angry on the twitter on my machine before the election. >> yeah. >> conspiracy theory, joe, you're doctoring tapes. and joe, you people are lying about the polls. and joe, the mainstream media is not telling the truth. why don't you quote rasmussen more? and joe, you're wrong. you're a socialist marxist, blah, blah, blah. it's like most of them have gotten the memo. they were lied to by pollsters. >> what are the liberals mad at you about? >> everything. >> what are they yelling about? >> well, they're mad because i wrote a blog saying hey, read steve rattner's column yesterday. >> see, that gets them mad. >> they're mad, rattner is a democrat. >> no, he's a plutocrat.

they don't like them. >> we're still going back to spreadsheets. they're just so angry. >> we have to devote an entire program, perhaps, to raising the question -- hopefully answering the question -- what did these people do before the creation of the twitter? >> they kicked their dogs. >> they did something like that. >> they kicked their dogs. all right. coming up, house majority leader eric cantor will be here. also, "time" magazine's joe klein. nbc's political director, chuck todd, and bloomberg view's margaret carlson. standing by in the green room, chris "mad dog" russo is here to bring us the nfl action. >> arr! also, mike florio joins the conversation. first, here's bill karins. >> mike florio needs a nickname. willie? mad dog and mike. >> magic mike. >> no. the magic man. i don't know. >> mo flo. >> look, he's leaving. >> what's going on? >> let's go to bill karins with a check on the forecast.

bill. >> i hope everyone had a wonderful holiday weekend. there wasn't a lot of dramatic weather over the last four days, but i did stumble across this video from superstorm sandy, one of the most epic videos i've seen of the storm surge and the waves crashing there. this was union beach, new jersey, a 15-year-old stayed in his house and took these pictures right as high tide approached. and you can see, this is about three hours before that water even peaked at its height. that's why the jersey shore got devastated. let me show you what's going on on this monday morning. winter gear for many across the country. the coldest morning by far from west to east. new england's a very chilly morning just like it's been all weekend. we are seeing a little bit of snow out there coming off of lake ontario, oswego down to syracuse. a little snow on the new york state throughway. that's about it, though. you want to talk about cold. look at the northern plains. now in the negative windchills from minneapolis to fargo. that cold air is heading for chicago as we go throughout the day today. also, the other side of this. still a little bit of warmth left in the deep south. we could see the threat of some

severe storms today. louisiana, east texas, not too bad, though. just a little bit of large hail and some wind damage with the strongest storm. forecast for your monday, nice and quiet day for all the big airports. just a little chilly. the afternoon will be okay. and a little heads up. a little mini snow event for the mid-atlantic into the northeast as we go throughout tuesday. this will be during the daylight hours. it only looks like an inch or two possible outside of new york and philadelphia and especially pa and new jersey. a lot of that will not stick to the roads in the big cities and could even be mixed with some rain. again, that's tomorrow. today's dry in those areas. you're watching "morning joe." we're brewed by starbucks. [ male announcer ] it's that time of year again. time for citi price rewind. because your daughter really wants that pink castle thing.

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let's take a look at the "morning papers." willie, you're shocked about something. >> i'm just getting word in my ear about our director, t.j., was one number away from the powerba powerball, $250 million. he missed it by one number. >> we would have never seen him again. >> one number? >> he got four and the powerball. >> it would be like the beginning of waking and divine. >> wow! that's unbelievable. >> time for the "morning papers." "the washington post," the holiday shopping season got off to a good start this weekend with the average consumer spending $423, total spending since thanksgiving is up nearly 13% from last year, an estimated $59.1 billion. and today, that trend will likely continue. you know, i've been doing this since 1973. cyber monday. it really is. you know that it's -- the christmas season is here when it's cyber monday. this is expected to be the largest online shopping day of

the year. "wall street journal," emergency unemployment benefits for more than 2 million out-of-work americans expected to expire by the end of the year. since 2008, congress has extended the benefit several times. however, some out-of-work americans feel another extension is unlikely due to the partisan nature of washington and the threat of that fiscal cliff. let's do some "politico." with us, chief white house correspondent, mike allen, with a look at the "playbook." mike, what's going on? >> happy monday. i've got one that's going to make joe's twitter machine blow a gasket. >> what's that? >> guess what democrats suddenly love? >> what? >> super pacs. it's amazing what winning will do. "politico's" up with a great story this morning saying that the democratic super pacs including the ones that helped out with the house and senate are "a," going to their donors now, trying to get more money while they're excited, but "b," are trying to build a permanent

infrastructure, a permanent set of groups that have the blessing of the obama white house. others in the democratic power structure who can go out and raise money. so the house democratic leader, nancy pelosi, senator schumer spoke recently at a conference here in washington, a sort of thank-you conference for the donors. paul begala, as you know, worked with the obama -- pro-obama super pacs prior tos u.prioriti. democrats often lose because they try and reinvent the wheel each cycle. this time they're going to learn from the obama campaign. it took its '08 blueprint and built on it. he says democrats are going to do the same thing, and that includes these outside groups. >> i'm confused. i thought citizens united was the greatest threat to american democracy since sputnik. so they like it now. okay, hold on, let me write this down. this is moving so fast. i think freedom, democrats said

slowly died with citizens united, hold on, freedom, bad. okay. we got it. all right. that's written down. well, mike, this is kind of confusing to me. they like super pacs now. >> it's amazing what winning does. and they've seen that if republicans are going to play, they're going to play, too. and i can tell you that republicans, even though there's been a lot of conversation around the table, about what republicans actually got for their close to a billion dollars in outside money, they're pushing ahead. the super pacs are going to play in house races, races coming up in 2014. >> yeah. >> we may see them spending a little bit on the super pacs -- excuse me, on the fiscal cliff. >> this just in, mike. mika is starting mika pac. are you going to do that? are you going to raise hundreds of millions of dollars? >> i sure am. i know exactly what i'm going to do with it. >> what are you going to do with it? >> i'm going to have a campaign

to support all sorts of things that drive you crazy. >> yeah? >> mm-hmm. yeah. >> how about just take the money -- >> it's really hypocritical, mike. >> and democrats say that they also are going to expand what they're doing with super pacs. they're going to get into advocacy for the president's agenda, looking at house races, more local races. so they're seeing that it works, and they're going to play. >> i think mika, willie and i are going to start our own super pac. >> i'm sure you are. >> and we're going to spend it every bit as efficiently as that jill kelley lady and her husband did. we're going to raise money, and we're going to spend it to entertain and fly to the south of france. >> sounds good. >> bet the ponies. >> you guys should do that. >> ponies. dogs. >> puppies. >> what about taking over hostess? you guys would be a great management team for hostess. >> how many times can freedom die? >> i don't know, but freedom die tonight. >> thank you, mike. >> have a good week. >> see you, mike. up next, the giants ended a two-game losing skid, putting a

hurting on the packers. we'll talk to mike florio and mad dog, chris russo, next on "morning joe." music is a universal language. but when i was in an accident... i was worried the health care system spoke a language all its own with unitedhealthcare, i got help that fit my life. information on my phone. connection to doctors who get where i'm from. and tools to estimate what my care may cost. so i never missed a beat. we're more than 78,000 people looking out for more than 70 million americans. that's health in numbers. unitedhealthcare.

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1:59 to go. this is your ball game for baltimore. flacco in the pocket. dumped off, rice has some room, but can he really get to that first down line? rice stays on his feet. ray rice, incredible! >> that was ray rice and the ravens, under two minutes to go, ended up forcing overtime and then winning the game in san diego. >> willie, that was fourth and 29! >> fourth and 29. where's the "d," you've got to ask. they're in that prevent that prevents you from winning. let's ask these guys. we've got like florio with us from profootball.com, profootballtalk.com and the host of sirius xm's mad dog radio, chris russo. >> gentlemen, ladies, how are you? >> i listen to you in the afternoon. >> oh, you do. >> how did mr. florio, when i have good guests on, he puts it on nbc sports talk. >> it's called synergy. >> synergy. and joe knows my lovely wife. >> really? >> dunkin' donuts in our hometown. >> starbucks. >> oh, the starbucks. >> starbucks.

>> i screwed that one up. >> i have never been inside the door of a dunkin' donuts. >> we hit the delay button. >> starbucks. >> i screwed that up. here you go. >> can we delay that, t.j.? >> no such thing. >> aye carumba. way to go, mad dog. >> how much longer does norv keep his job? >> i think he could go at any time because the general manager is trying to save his job, and maybe if you flip the switch and try something new, maybe you turn it around because there's still an opportunity if they can get hot down the stretch. that's the thing. there's a lot of these teams floating around 5-6, 4-7. if they would get hot and win their last four or five in a row, they could maybe get in. >> it's a good effort by ray rice, too, here. >> what about the jets, though, man? can we talk about the jets for a second? >> sure. >> you know what? i've had enough with rex. i'm sorry. i love rex. one game away from the super bowl twice.

his team is terrible. yeah, we can blame the gm, but you know what? he's got his feet in cement. >> he thinks he's better than he is. he's not vince lombardi. and rex makes it sound like he's won five championships. rex, as a defensive assistant, that doesn't count as a championship ring. but sparano was a bad hire as offensive coordinator. he's an offensive line coach. he's not an offensive coordinator. obviously tebow has caused some distraction. and sanchez, some. >> some. >> some. it's too much. too much. >> sanchez is awful. >> it's going to be a tug-of-war between rex ryan and mike t tanenbaum playing out behind the scenes. >> i think woody would be afraid to fire those two. i think he's joined at the hip with tanenbaum. >> that was a public humiliation, the entire nation watching after thanksgiving dinner, everyone saw that. >> it's the funniest play of all time watching sanchez fumbling, runs into the offensive lineman. it's actually funny.

>> it's a broken play. so he misreads the play after calling it in the huddle five seconds before. he gets confused. he runs into the posterior of a lineman. >> it's funny. >> falls down and fumbles the ball! >> the posterior of the lineman was thrown into him by vince wilfork. it's still not a good look. >> that's what they were spinning. al michaels was saying it, it wasn't the case. >> three touchdowns in 21 seconds? 52 seconds. >> 52 seconds. so what do you do at quarterback? forget this season. it's done. it's over with. you've still got mark sanchez, you owe him a lot of money. >> that's the problem, you owe him a ton of money. if the coach and gm come back, i think they're going to keep saying sanchez is our guy. >> not easy to get quarterbacks in the nfl. think of the usc quarterbacks for a second. carson palmer goes to cincinnati, does nothing in the game. i wouldn't go near him if i was a team. leinart has been a disaster. and now you've got sanchez. three quarterbacks out of usc,

and none of them, we all thought they'd be great. none of them have turned out to be big-time quarterbacks. >> the 49ers have a couple good quarterbacks. >> they do. >> as a giant, you've got to be happy. >> we needed that win. the giants beat the packers, pretty handily. the game was over essentially at halftime. mike, the good ninegiants back . >> eli's arm was never tired, but now he's had some rest. it's better. it was never tired, but now it's rested. look, he need week off badly, and it showed, and the whole team needed that week off badly. >> the giants' defensive line, if they get something going, and rodgers was running for his life last night. and i'm down on him anyway for being so sensitive on that "60 minutes" thing. did you see that? oh, my -- calm down! geez! but i love him as a player, but last night he was running for his life against that great defense. >> it's amazing how quickly a

team can go from looking so good to just in one night they looked so bad. >> hard to believe. green bay, 38-10 and mccarthy should have gone for it on fourth and inches in the first half, down. >> willie, speaking from bad to good, the bears and a vandy grad, stiff-arming, looking tough. >> jay cutler, earl bennett, the whole vanderbilt franchise in chicago. you look at the giants, you look at chicago, atlanta, you look at san francisco. who's the best team in the nfc right now? >> i think that's a very tricky question. you like san francisco's combination of defense and if kaepernick plays well, so the niners are going to be very tough. atlanta probably will get home field advantage, but i don't think anybo think's atlanta is an impossible way to win. those four. the saints don't look great. minnesota's going nowhere. i don't trust the bears. i think those first four. >> with everybody jumbled together, you have to assume eli's going to make a play in the right moment.

the defense will be at the top of its game in the right game. falcons -- joe, you know this -- about not winning in the playoffs. nobody's going to take them seriously until they do. >> and the giants good on the road. it won't bother the giants if they have to play a couple of road games in this season. >> quick bcs, see what you think, notre dame wins at usc, they're in. basically another semifinal on saturday. winner of alabama/georgia gets in. a lot of people think alabama will roll in that one. if it is notre dame/alabama, where do you give the edge? >> that's an interesting game. notre dame has all that karma, they'll be a big underdog. they'll play into that. but i think if you give nick saban a second chance to redeem his season with that quarterback, i think alabama will win the game against notre dame. >> i think so, too, which makes me think that notre dame still finds a way. you know, it all lines up against notre dame, and they just find a way. >> good karma, the tight end's good. if the quarterback plays well, he'll do a good job in preparation. so if the quarterback goes and plays well, notre dame's got a

chance. >> when that defense gets in tight spaces, it rises to a new level. >> alabama needs to watch out for georgia. their secondary's a weak spot. georgia has a pretty good passing attack. i'll tell you, i think we'll handle notre dame if we get there. but that's a big if. georgia is going to be a real challenge. >> the other danger is everyone in the country's already talking about notre dame/alabama. alabama still has another game to play on saturday. >> i guarantee you saban's not. you see saban at the end, they're up 49-0 against auburn, and he's screaming like he's down 50 points. he's crazy in all the right ways. >> and one more thing. vanderbilt, 8-4. >> yeah! >> chick-fil-a bowl, gator bowl, dot right thing. a great story, a great team. we brought 30,000 fans to the liberty bowl last year. bring vanderbilt. >> the chick-fil-a bowl. >> atlanta on new year's eve, we will be there. we will all be there. >> we can say chick-fil-a? >> yes, that we can say. that we can say. mike florio, mad dog, thanks so

much, guys. see you. up next, "mika's must-read opinion pages." you're watching "morning joe" brewed by starbucks. [ grunts ] hand cramp!

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reading "the new york times" yesterday. >> look how beautiful that is. >> gorgeous. >> you can tell t.j. took his $10,000 and left because obviously there's another director in there. >> day off. >> that is a beautiful shot. >> all right. steve rattner writes this in "the new york times." more chips for tax reform. i chose two. you guys pick this apart. president obama has proposed much of the needed adjustments including eliminating the special treatment of dividends and raising the tax on capital gains to 20% for the rich. personally i would go further and raise the capital gains rate to 28% right where it was during the strong recovery of bill clinton's first term.

inevitably, a chorus of outrage would greet any such increase. capital investment would be severely impaired! some of the wealthy might decamp from america! put me down as skeptical about such dire forecasts. during my 30 years on wall street, taxes on unearned income have bounced up and down with regularity, and i've never detected any change in the appetite for hard work and accumulating wealth on the part of myself or any of my fellow capitalists. >> i absolutely love that line where he says, whether the rates are up or whether they're down, i've never detected any change in the appetite for hard work and accumulating wealth on the part of myself or any of my fellow capitalists. so i guess, again, john, this goes back to the question, is the president only -- is he going to take the sort of my way or the highway approach that we're going to raise the top rate to 39.6%, or does it just

seem to you, looking at where both sides are starting, that we're going to have a compromise possibly somewhere some the middle? >> i think the president has said publicly that, you know, he's staked out a position, but he has said publicly in his press conference that he's open to discussing anything that gets to more revenue, that the key here is that we need more revenue. the only way to deal with the long term, not just the short term, but the long-term fiscal challenge the country faces requires both spending cuts, entitlement reform on this side and also more revenue. and the question of more revenue has been -- >> has he been, though -- hasn't he been fairly set on raising that top rate to 39.6%? >> he has said that that was what he campaigned on and that he feels like he has a mandate for that. but again, he's left himself wiggle room. and he said, know, he is open to a discussion with anybody who has a better way to get to the deal with the fiscal challenges the country faces. i think the president has -- so far in four years, there has not been an issue on which barack

obama has said it's my way or the highway and has stayed with that position through the end of negotiation. he has been, you know, flexible on almost everything. some people on the left think he's been too flexible on most things. and my guess is that if there's a way to get to an outcome that he thinks is the right outcome, he's going to be flexible on how to get there. >> is it fair to say, joe, as rattn e rattner implies that raising taxes are contrived to an extent? >> i don't know that they're contrived. i know a lot of us believed that when we lowered capital gains rates in the 1990s, that that was the right thing to do, that it would stimulate growth. you go, though, 10, 15 years later, and you see, again, this huge divide between the richest americans and the poorest americans, you drive through manhattan, greenwich, where people have just accumulated -- boston, wherever, just remarkable wealth, vast sums of wealth.

the land and gentry. and you sit there and go, you know what? these people that live in these mansions and have private jets and live an extraordinary life like few americans lived 30 years ago, they can probably deal with a 20% tax rate on capital gains instead of 15%. i don't think that's going to wreck the economy. and i think there are a lot of republicans that are saying what a few of us were saying after the election. bill kristol said it. so tell me again, why are we fighting and risking our majorities, protecting billionaires that are hedge fund guys who are paying 14% tax rates? >> walk two blocks from this street, fifth avenue between this building and 57th street, and the storefronts on fifth avenue. anybody who can go into those storefronts and purchase things in those storefronts are not going to be damaged by these tax

reforms that we've been talking about. they're not going to be damaged. >> by the way, the storefronts aren't going to be damaged by raising capital gains rates from 15% to 20%. i want everybody to be rich. i'm a capitalist. i want everybody to make $250,000. barack obama says that's rich. whatever. i want everybody -- i love people being successful in this country, but again, if you're making billions of dollars, again, there's something immoral, mika, about these people paying 14%, 15%, 16% on their taxes because the tax rates are the way they are while small business owners who, you know, make $250,000 a year in manhattan and may employ four or five people are paying 35% tax rate. >> why has this been so hard, then? >> well, i think that the insight that is at the core of rattner's article that you keyed on at the beginning is a psychological insight. you know, the people who we know who really rich, really

successful people are not -- are driven by -- they're financially motivated and they're energetic and smart and work hard because they care about money. making them pay a little more taxes is not going to damage that element of their psychology. they're not going to suddenly say oh, you know, well, if i have to pay an extra 10% on my capital gains, i'm not going to work hard to make money anymore. it's crazy. >> it's not worth it. >> and by the way, let me just correct one thing. most of the rich people i know that have a lot of money, like mike bloomberg. you know what? mike bloomberg works hard not to make more money. he works hard because he works hard. he wants to win. he's not going to go off and retire after he stops being mayor. i've yet to meet -- >> i don't think rattner will retire. >> and rattner's not going to retire. these guys could have gone to beaches ten years ago. they're going to keep working and keep working hard. >> "time's" joe klein is up next. more "morning joe" when we come back. ♪

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well, look at this. >> it's big. >> another 50. >> all right. >> look at this. >> it's unbelievable. >> i think david axelrod. >> david axelrod contacted us on the slash the 'stache thing. we're now up to $800,000, trying to reach $1 million.

david said he will cut his husba mustache all for a cure. an organization susan axelrod runs to help cure epilepsy. we just got another $50,000 donation in from, mika? >> ambassador. >> uae ambassador. thank you, yusef. we appreciate it so much. >> we're really close now. >> mike will be up in boston, i guess, wednesday. >> wednesday night. >> for this event. we're going to go over the $1 million barrier. >> yes. coming up this morning, chuck todd and margaret carlson will both be here shaving their mustaches. first -- i'm sorry, i'm tired. >> joe klein is here on why the winners of the 2012 presidential campaign should listen to the losers. look at david axelrod. that thing's going. we'll be right back. [ grunts ] hand cramp!

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welcome back to "morning joe." mike barnicle and john heilemann are still with us. and joining the set, political columnist for "time" magazine, joe klein. good to have you on board, top of the hour here. >> what are you looking at, joe? >> what am i looking at? >> can i ask you a question? why is there never a "new york times" on the set? >> because it's liberal. >> can you give me a "times"? it's always impossible -- do people steal our "new york times" over here? is there a front page? there's never a "new york times." >> that's it. >> i don't get it.

>> yeah, somebody stole it. >> people must be stealing it. oh, we got one. willie hides it on the bottom. so what are you looking at today, joe? >> i'm getting attacked from the left. >> for what? >> a tweet attack for something i said on tv yesterday. >> what did you say yesterday? >> by the way, this goes back to health care, and that's this. if we get -- you know, we're going to have obamacare. everybody's going to have health insurance. it's going to be a premium support program, a voucher just like paul ryan wanted. >> right. >> and if everybody has health care, why can't we raise the age of eligibility for medicare a little bit? >> why can't we? >> right. >> i mean, so i've been attacked for that. >> why? >> why would you be attacked? >> because the left wants medicare for everybody forever. and medicare is, as you and i have discussed on this show -- >> it's unsustainable. >> yes. >> you know what i want? >> what? >> i want lollipops to grow on trees. i really do. i want whiskey to trickle down mountain streams.

>> we have that. come to brooklyn. come to brooklyn. >> exactly. i would like john heilemann to be able to go to dispensers getting getting bubble gum, having acid drop out if that's what he wants. >> in colorado. >> i want all of these things, but it's not going to happen. the liberals certainly -- republicans may be afraid of math -- i mean, science. why are liberals afraid of math? do they not believe in math? because if you look at medicare and medicaid -- >> there are some conservatives who don't believe in math. >> it's simple math. why are liberals afraid of math? i wish they would be more open-minded. >> here's how you make them more open-minded. at this point, we're going to have obamacare. it is a voucherized program of the sort that republicans -- in fact, it was proposed by republicans in the first place, and so republicans should really be working to make this thing work. which means that these health care exchanges, the health care

superstores, it has to be a national market. it has to be a real market where market forces bring the prices down. you guys should be working on that stuff. >> can i ask you a question? >> you don't want to talk about it. >> no, that sounds fine with me. >> okay. i just wanted to make sure and get you record on that. >> it's boring at 7:05 in the morning, but yeah. >> 6:05. >> it would be okay at 6:05, but we're asleep by now. does barack obama have a mandate? did he run on a platform that gives him a mandate now? >> i think moderation has a mandate. >> was that barack obama's -- sort of the balanced approach that he talked about? >> yeah. i think -- but he has to give on the other side as well. and he already, you know, proposed entitlement reforms when i was negotiating with boehner a summer ago, two summers ago. >> his balanced approach may be -- no, no. >> this is not a mandate for socialism or anything like that.

>> right. >> i think that the vast majority of people -- and there's a majority in the house of representatives, a centrist majority for a balanced approach. >> i think he does. actually, mika, i agree. he kept talking about a balanced approach, a balanced approach. we also said the campaign was a campaign about nothing other than raising taxes on the rich, but i do think he might have -- i think joe makes a great point, he might have a mandate for moderation because he kept talking about, quote, the balanced approach. >> although watching the sunday shows and reading over the weekend, you get a sense that republicans are making a real legitimate attempt at compromising, and several of them talking about grover norquist's pledge and how that pledge shouldn't get in the way -- >> grover norquist's sell-by date has passed. he's over. >> but i hand it to the gentlemen who have stepped forward on sunday because apparently it takes a lot. this has been a source of tremendous difficulty. and we can't get to compromise unless both sides do something on the key issues that they've

held back on. that doesn't seem so hard now. >> can i talk about something else that's scaring the hell out of me? clowns. they make me very nervous. carneys also, as austin powers said, also nuclear war. >> and the dutch. >> and the dutch. i don't trust them. >> i know. i know. >> i mean, seriously? you've got to keep your eye on them. >> smoking the pancake. >> what about the swedes? anyway. >> this is really getting weird. >> front page article, "new york times," egypt tumult, a rift emerges in morsi's team. morsi, who is part of the muslim brotherhood, they say hey, you know what? we're not going to be involved in the process. we're just going to sit back here. we're going to read our koran. and we're just going to sit back. suddenly they decide we're going to be involved in the process, which is all right. and then we see this weekend, morsi is seizing power that he doesn't have.

egypt's about to get really ugly again. >> you know, i think that you see the pushback in the streets. morsi's not going to be able to get away with everything that he wants to get away with. they've turned a corner. >> what's his justification for seizing all of this power illegally? >> hubris. the guy -- he had just helped broker a deal in gaza, and he felt that he had some running room with the americans because he, you know, had essentially done our bidding. >> he's got the president of the united states calling him, the american secretary of state. >> that kind of goes to your head. >> yeah. i'm a big guy. >> you know, you live half your life in prison. >> urkle had that when bill clinton was president. >> i don't know what ron burkle did during those years. >> i don't want to know. >> i think that is a topic that's best left unexplored on this program.

no good that can come of that. >> no good can come of that. let's talk about egypt. mohamed morsi who now runs egypt. he swept in after the arab spring, after the elections. we all celebrate that a tyrant is driven from power, even though that tyrant is one of the best allies that we've had in the middle east over the past 30 years. but it seems like the guy is now trying to seize ultimate power. >> well, look. i think, you know, and joe knows a lot more about this region than i ever will, but it seems like we are in a period, the arab spinning and what happened in egypt was going to unleash, actual democracy came to egypt, there was going to be a period of turmoil and instability. we're now seeing it, and managing that is going to be one of the paramount foreign policy challenges for this administration and probably the next couple of administrations as you have to deal with what it actually means to have a society that had ostensible democracy but nothing like real democracy for decades now in turmoil as

real democracy and all of the forces that are set loose by that coming into play there. >> you know -- i'm sorry, joe, go ahead. >> i expect that you're going to see a muslim brotherhood government in syria before too long, too. and the really interesting conflict in all of these countries is going to be between the muslim brotherhood who are, believe it or not, moderate conservatives and the salafis who are the real extremists. what we've seen i think from morsi with the exception of this power grab is that he's willing to play. >> what about his full embrace of hamas? while they're lobbing missiles into gaza? >> hamas is another muslim brotherhood government that is facing pressure from extremes. it was the extremists who were shooting the rockets over to israel. there were negotiations going on to get that stopped. >> are you saying hamas are moderates? >> compared to the salafists and

al qaeda, yeah. they are a muslim brotherhood government which is why morsi had the leverage to negotiate the cease-fire. >> mika, a lot of interesting things, talking about foreign policy going on here at home, talking about who the next secretary of state may be, john mccain said, along with lindsey graham and several others, who said they were going to fight susan rice tooth and nail, that sort of changed over the weekend, didn't it? >> that appears to be changing just a tad bit. heilmann, you wrote about it. senator mccain is softening his attacks on u.n. ambassador susan rice after vowing to block her potential nomination as secretary of state. republicans claim ambassador rice deliberately misled the country in the aftermath of the september 11th attack on the u.s. consulate in benghazi. but rice says that she's not to blame, arguing she relied on the talking points from the intelligence community. although mccain had threatened a senate filibuster earlier this month, he's now open to meeting directly with miss rice. >> is there anything that ambassador rice can do to change

your mind about it? >> sure. she can -- i give everyone the benefit of explaining their position and the actions that they took. and i'll be glad to have the opportunity to discuss these issues with her. >> she could conceivably get your vote for secretary of state? >> i think she deserves the ability and the opportunity to explain herself and her position. >> the white house says no decisions have been made as far as cabinet selections for the president's second term. and john heilemann, part of what you wrote about this, the bottom line is, you can't see a reality in which they would fight susan rice's nomination. >> i just don't. every indication -- every piece of available evidence suggests that the president wants her in this job. and every piece of available evidence increasingly is that republicans recognize that there is plenty of substance to criticize in terms of what happened in benghazi. there are a lot of unanswered questions. we've said this on the show for the last week. but they're not really centered on susan race who had nothing to do with securing that compound

in bebenghazi. >> i think there are more unanswered questions about benghazi, by the way. >> wait, did you say there are not? >> there are not. >> so why didn't they provide the security that the ambassador was requesting before his death? why didn't -- >> he wasn't -- the level of security that existed in benghazi was the level of security that the ambassador wanted. you read bobby worth's piece in "the new york times" magazine about chris stevens and about hands-on diplomacy. i've got a dog in this hunt. my son's a diplomat who's been deployed in dangerous places. he knew chris stevens. everybody who i talked to in the state department, i talked to a lot of people, believe that the talking points were accurate. it was a spontaneous demonstration by extremists. they saw that there was no security. they came back with mortars. >> you just said there's no security there. there's not a question why there's no security in a place that chris stevens knew was

dangerous, that he had said was dangerous? >> chris stevens was the kind of diplomat who wanted a minimum of security so that the american diplomats could be accessible to the people. that's the way he lived his life. >> joe klein, you are saying there are no questions out there remaining about security? >> yeah, there is a big question. the question is why are john mccain and lindsey graham continuing this ridiculous argument that was a political issue during the campaign? >> well, we agree that it's a ridiculous argument about susan rice. it's not a ridiculous argument about our ambassador being killed in what is in effect a war zone. the first time since 1979. you don't think there's a question to be asked? >> well, yeah, there is a question to be asked, but not the one that you're asking. the question is -- >> so all's fine. nothing to see here. look away. >> no, there's a big question about how do we do hands-on diplomacy when our diplomats are on the streets with the people in an era of terrorism. there are some like stevens who erred on the side of low security. there are other places -- if

you've been out there -- where the embassies are fortresses, and the american diplomats are removed from the people. this is a major policy question. >> so joe -- >> it's a serious question. but this has nothing -- >> all reports that chris stevens had written that he needed more security are false reports? >> i don't know that those reports exist. i mean, there was some controversy about the level of security. >> at the mbembassy. >> that you needed at the embassy in tripoli. >> and they had. >> the fact is that chris stevens lived his life in the streets. >> i think it's the embassy versus the consulate and the security questions there that keep getting mixed up in the argument. >> joe and mika, i can't tell you how many e-mails i've gotten from diplomats since i wrote about this last week who say, you're absolutely right. >> the question with regard to susan rice would be this. who hung her out to dry? who allowed her to say basically the same thing for a period of nearly two weeks? did no one -- not general petraeus, not anyone in the

intelligence community, pick up the phone -- >> the talking points were accurate. >> for two weeks? >> they were absolutely accur e accurate. >> were they really? >> they were. it was a spontaneous demonstration by extremists. >> by al qaeda? >> by -- no, not by al qaeda -- >> so was al qaeda involved in this attack or not? >> anybody can call themselves al qaeda. the militias that you have -- >> no, was al qaeda involved in this attack or not? >> no, it was not. >> it was not, really, because that's a surprise to general petraeus who said they knew immediately that it was a terror attack and that al qaeda was involved. >> salafists were involved. >> you keep going back to salafists. >> they're militant extremists. al qaeda was an organization organized by osama bin laden. >> so you're saying al qaeda was not involved? >> you've got to be accurate about these things. >> don't tell me i have to be accurate about these things. i didn't testify in front of the intelligence committee last week, general petraeus did, and

he said they knew immediately that this was a terror attack and that al qaeda was involved, and you're sitting here telling me that there's nothing to see here, move along, and that's fine with me. we would not be talking about this right now except for the fact, joe, that you said there is nothing to see here. what you're saying is not the same thing that general petraeus said in front of the intel community last week. >> no, i think petraeus was absolutely accurate. you have a local militia, a local militia that is an al qaeda wannabe. they go out into the streets. as soon as they get the excuse, which is this film, they get to the consulate, they see that there is no security there. they come back with mortars. this is essentially what susan rice said. >> so was al qaeda involved or not? i'm confused. >> gin al qae >> define al qaeda. >> i'm only defining what general petraeus said was al qaeda. are we now going to define what the meaning of "is" is?

joe, general petraeus said it last week. testifying that al qaeda was involved. so i don't know what he meant. but i would guess al qaeda means al qaeda. >> a group that -- a local street gang -- >> uh-huh. guys that were hanging out rolling dice against the wall, smoking cigarettes, singing "doo-wop" hits. >> a local street gang that wants to be afill yfiliated wit crips. was al qaeda involved? as an example. >> general petraeus says so. >> as an example because these are people who admire al qaeda. but did al qaeda direct this? no. >> i admire the beatles, but when i play music, i'm not the beatles. >> you could be the fifth beatle like murray the kay. >> like the pete best of television. >> okay. let's leave it there. >> eyes are unflushing.

>> absolutely right. >> john heilemann, do you have anything to say? >> well, she very purposely on those sunday shows was asked whether it was an act of terror. she would not use that language. very purposely on five different sunday shows. the administration was asked for nine days whether it was an act of terror. the administration, jay carney, the president, declined to call it an act of terror. he really did not. >> oh, my god, joe, seriously? >> and nine days later, it was an act of terror. >> we have a more important question to ask here, john. has the president invited you to go play golf? >> no. >> because you are just gobbling up the talking points like thanksgiving turkey. >> the only president i played golf with was bill clinton, and i don't play golf with people i cover. >> okay. very good. >> that's very admirable. >> i guess so. >> joe klein, thank you very much. >> joe, this has been illuminating. >> i hope so. i mean, really, it's time that we cleared this thing up because

there's a lot less here than meets the eye. >> who's the police officer in "simpsons"? quimby was the mayor. chief wigam. move along. >> chief wigam. >> i loved chief wigam. all right. >> john tower watches "the simpsons." >> yeah. who's ahead? house majority leader eric cantor will join us here on the set. we look forward to that. up next, nbc's chuck todd and margaret carlson join the conversation. you're watching "morning joe" brewed by starbucks. ♪ i'd like to thank eating right, whole grain, multigrain cheerios! mom, are those my jeans? [ female announcer ] people who choose more whole grain tend to weigh less than those who don't. multigrain cheerios

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what are you looking at? hmm? >> out. >> are you staring at my chest? >> why not? it's the very heart of you. >> i love you.

>> elizabeth wants to play. ♪ >> you knew you could never leave them. you were playing. i was just another knot. what's me? is that me? is that me? >> ms. taylor. may we speak with you a moment? ms. taylor, please. >> i play a much better drunk than that. >> the thing is, though. >> i'm sorry. >> that was lindsay lohan trying to come back -- you know, charlie sheen gave -- >> that is the worst thing i have ever seen. >> and even on lifetime, it's the worst thing. >> hey, hey. the executive producer is our next guest, chuck todd. >> oh. >> he was executive producer of that. >> how'd you know?

that was an "snl" skit. >> he was lindsay lohan's acting coach. >> that was insanely terrible. is that really airing? >> that's part of the joke, right? we're going to find out it was all really comedy. it's a dark comedy and we don't get the joke. >> that's pretty funny. >> it's a parody of a parody. >> hilarious if you look at it that way. >> chuck todd's here and margaret carlson's here. chuck, notre dame. >> roll, tide, please. >> you want to see alabama play notre dame? >> knowing the luck notre dame's having, somehow georgia's going to beat you guys and then lay an egg against notre dame. >> wow! >> please don't let that happen, joe. >> i'm very worried about georgia. >> i want to see 'bama beat notre dame by 70. the inability -- >> where does this hate come from? >> he's a miami fan. >> it's long brewing. notre dame, what they used to do to the university of my iami an embarrassing and the things they did, it was bitter.

it's pure bitterness. when you're a university of miami guy, there are -- there is one team you come to loath in life. and it is notre dame. >> anti-catholic. >> it is anti-catholic. you know what? >> why do you hate the pope so much, chuck? >> seriously, are you blowing the dog whistle here, and we're really sad. we'll just say it, okay? okay? when you say realm, we know what you mean. we know what you mean. when you say south bend, indiana, you know what? papist hater, we know, you're blowing the dog whistle. >> wow! here's what i don't understand, joe. auburn held you guys scoreless in the fourth quarter? >> come on. >> i mean -- >> 15th string in. >> do you only score seven points against auburn in the entire second half? what happened to alabama? >> i saw you, chuck, actually tweet in the third quarter, and it was sad and pathetic.

and i was going to respond, but then i decided to let you just boil in your own bitter miami hurricane juices. >> hey, we just got by duke. the glory days. >> come on, man. are you guys going to fire your coach? >> why would we? no, no, no. they've got a bunch of young kids. if they don't win ten games next year, then we'll pull a gene chizik. >> gene chizik. >> what a fall. >> nick saban found out at halftime that chizik was getting fired. that's why he didn't run up the points. >> he really did. he showed a lot of restraints. >> save us, please. >> how about these republicans? >> we love them. they're great. >> i think that it's a good sign. >> yeah. i see a little movement here. i mean, grover norquist would say, you know, speaking of dog whistles, that he hears them not breaking the tax pledge because they have all of these qualifications in there like you have to reform entitlements. so therefore they are not giving up on the tax pledge.

but i think they are. i think there's movement. you have three now. you'll have more. >> speaking out -- >> by the way, senator tom coburn was the first one to do it. >> last year. >> remember? yes. and so -- >> so what do democrats need to give on? and really give. where they don't want to. >> they're going to have to give on entitlements. i think raising the medicare age, we're all healthier and we live longer than we used to. get it up there. i don't know. 68, 70. you know, somewhere. >> you know, you can do that. you can have exemptions, and dick durbin's been concerned about this for blue-collar workers who, you know, live tougher lives day in and day out, a more taxing, stressful lives. we can have carve-outs for people. >> alan simpson said there is a carve-out somewhere in simpson-bowles for those people who are in hard labor, unlike us sitting around, you know. >> mika will tell you that sitting next to me three hours a

day -- >> is hard labor. >> -- issed ha ethe hardest of labor. >> mika's been explaining health care reform and medicare and how they go together for years, joe. >> she has. >> to you. yeah. if only he'd listen. >> if only i'd listen. >> hey, joe, you know, everything we keep hearing, if the white house could cut a deal with senate republicans, then it would already be done. you know, i'll be impressed when we see house republicans breaking grover norquist's pledge. that's not what we're seeing yet. and that's sort of the reality that we're in. there's a lot of happy talk among senate republicans. but they're big players right now. this is about the house. and what can get votes. >> can you explain -- i've talked a little bit about it -- but can you explain why house republicans who ram against barack obama ran against obamacare, ran against raising taxes -- >> and won. >> -- and got 85% of the vote in their district? can you explain why they may not care what "the new york times"

editorial page or "the nation" says they're going to cave and follow the president? >> they care about what their constituents think. their constituents are mostly republican, mostly conservative, and they are going to care about this issue of taxes in a way. and in order for -- boehner has said, speaker boehner, is he's got to cut a deal, and he won't go to the floor unless he's got a majority of the majority. a majority of the republican conference. 170 republicans. and in order to get that, then you're asking 170 to somehow agree to raise tax rates. that's a lot. that's 170 guys breaking grover norquist's pledge. and that could be a primary suicide mission, joe. >> it could be. >> unless they figure out how to change -- that's why boehner's so desperately trying to come up with a way of saying look, we'll get you the same amount of revenue. we'll find it another way. just don't make us raise tax rates because he doesn't have

the votes for that. he doesn't know how to get those votes. >> explain that. he can get it, perhaps, say by closing the loopholes? >> because he can make a more populist argument. you don't want these -- they're getting away with -- they're getting away with sort of chicanery inside the tax code. we're going to get rid of that. >> how about raising the capital gains tax 5%? >> well, i think that's -- that's something, if republicans are serious about that, i have a feeling the white house would be open to that. the white house -- you know, it's funny. both of them have drawn true lines in the sand in this that we haven't paid a lot of attention to. the white house said they're not going to do anything unless some tax rates are raised. they're not saying, by the way, that they have to go all the way back to 39%. they'll take a deal that raises tax rates on the wealthiest one or two points to get it up to 36%, 37%. they want to get -- they made that pledge in exchange for getting the left to agree to

some of this entitlement conversation. republicans' line in the sand has been no tax rates at all. now, if they budge on something like capital gains, then maybe you get the white house to be open to well, okay, maybe we'll only ask you to raise the rate a point. >> all right, chuck todd, thanks. who do you have coming up on "the daily rundown"? >> i've got the two bald spokesmen now for the two parties. we've got brad woodhouse and shawn spicer coming on to show off their new hairdos. they did it for cancer. it was a very nice bipartisan thing. they shaved their heads. >> bigger than mustache. >> that's right. >> whole head. >> forget the mustache, forget goatee, they shaved their heads. no way joe and i will do that, ever. >> no way. >> margaret, stay with us. coming up, camelot continued. how a new generation of kennedy kids are making their mark. we'll discussion the "town & country's" jay field when "morning joe" returns in just a moment.

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welcome back to "morning joe." quick weather update here. and by the way, wednesday night

on nbc, lighting of the rockefeller plaza christmas tree. 8:00 p.m. east coast time. lights are already on. crystal's on top. getting ready. less than 30 days now. less than a month away from christmas day. let's take you through what you need to know to get you out the door on this monday morning. i hope you had a wonderful holiday weekend. the temperatures took the big plunge pretty much coast to coast. windchills kinds of brutal this morning in the northern plains. zero to negative in most locations. in the 30s on the east coast. one thing will happen today. we're going to see a few strong thunderstorms. yes, i know it's cold, but one area of the country is still kind of warm, it's east texas and louisiana. watch out late this afternoon towards this evening. large hail and maybe damaging winds. we're pretty calm coast to coast. many of the major airports, no problems today. it's as we go into tuesday, it gets a little more interesting. that storm today down in texas, louisiana, heads to the east coast. a little bit of rain and snow during the daylight hours. this is not going to be a big snow event, but it looks like one to two inches of snow is

possible. especially in the grass y areas outside of philadelphia and new york city. we'll follow that tomorrow, again, very minor impacts. we leave you with a shot of a very cold arch in st. louis. that's where we are watching temperatures plunging in the low windchills. coming up next here on "morning j joe," "town & country's" jay fielden on how rfk's granddaughter is headaching e g is shaking up camelot. that's next when "morning joe" returns.

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♪ hey. >> hey. what's going on? >> tesla's out there. >> you're supposed to be in new york. did he see you? >> no. >> yo.

what are you doing? >> nothing. talking to my friend. >> i know what he's doing. he's about to do a chat and cut. >> it's a total chat and cut. >> no, no, no. no. i know it looks like -- >> because you were chatting with your friend and then you cut the line. >> are you guys even friends? >> please, please, don't insult me, okay. i invented the chat and cut. this is amateur hour. you wouldn't even notice. >> get to the back of the line. it's not fair. >> it's not a chat and cut. >> it's a chat and cut. >> no, it's not a chat and cut. >> what are you doing? >> it's not fair. >> oh, man. >> the young woman was kit kennedy part of camelot's next generation. editor in chief of "town & country," jay fielden who is actually a distant relative of millard fillmore. the latest cover story is on kit kennedy. and it reads, in part, when it came time to leave for college,

kit shipped off to stanford where she majored in history. but while her peers were doing keg stands at sigma chi, kick was sneaking off to do extracurricular activities such as climbing kilimanjaro, rafting the grand canyon for an imax movie and making her society debut at crillon ball in paris. she's every bit the great-niece of jfk, who at the same age worked at the american embassy in london, traveled through south america and received a purple heart for his valor during the navy during world war ii. no purple heart for kick, but "town & country" says she is the niece that jackie would have loved. >> i think so. and lindsay lohan wasn't available. so we had to go with what we could get. >> had to go there. >> just kidding. yeah, i think she's great. i have to commend your pronunciation of the crillon ball. impressive for a guy from alabama. >> i try to go there at least

every other year. >> kick is great. i think we're at a moment where the kennedys keep on coming at you. joe iii is back in congress taking over barney frank's seat. kick is emerging in a little different vein as a kennedy who doesn't really want to go into politics but is spending most of her time in l.a. and working for her father's cause with clean water. >> she's out of the family business. >> it looks like it. you know, they always seem to get sucked back in. so she still has time, i think. as long as she keeps her nose clean. as chris buckley says in the piece, as long as she can manage the mischief, which is code, i think, for a thing that kennedy has to deal with. >> a lot of them haven't been able to manage the mischief and manage having absolutely everything given from an early age. >> it makes it fun to watch. >> yeah. let's talk about camelot continued, though. you actually take us inside hyannis port compound. >> that's right. the most famous house in

america, i suspect, a compound of many houses where i suspect mike would agree, some interesting secrets may be buried, if not bodies. >> it's a living museum. the home. i mean, the big house is the ambassador's home. ambassador kennedy's. and you sit there on the front porch. there it is right there in that picture. and you can literally, in your mind's eye, hear the helicopter landing on the grass there with president kennedy aboard and all the kids. it's still pretty much visually the same today. >> you spent a lot of time there. tell us about it. what's it like? >> well, when teddy was alive, the big home itself was, indeed, a museum. each and every room had an artifact to remind you of something that jumps off the pages of history still today. teddy would be able to tell you and has told me he remembers vividly the day that they came to the front door to tell his mother and father that his

oldest brother, joe, had been killed in world war ii. he remembered every detail of that. the house is just a treasure trove of american history. still. >> that's right. there's a great couple pictures in there, one of which has maybe a favorite family inscription that's hung on the wall which says "a good friend will come and bail you out of jail, but a true friend will be sitting right next to you saying, damn, that was fun." >> talk about kick. for those of us that have read a lot of kennedy history and know the kennedys know that kick is a significant name. >> yes. kick named after jfk's younger sister who ran off and married an anglican, which was a bad idea, right, especially if you like notre dame. >> rose didn't like that. when she got married, in fact, rose did not attend the wedding. and she later died early in her life after world war ii. you know -- >> she died in a plane crash? >> yes, that's right. that's right.

so kick has some shoes to fill. and she's very aware of that and kind of the spunkiness and somewhat the rebel in her -- what would it be, aunt's -- great-aunt's blood that she's got coarsing through her veins. >> mika? >> i like this -- i ran a road race this weekend with my daughter, and i've lost my voice. so i sound horrible, but it says about the house, there's so many houseguests that no one knows who belongs to whom. occasionally a tourist will walk in for lunch. >> that's right, yes. >> there's so many people there. >> i mean, i don't know if i want to say this on national tv, but it doesn't appear that there's a great threshold in order to get in. i mean, mike's been there, for instance. you know, people can just kind of wander into this place, if they know where it is, the gate is not looked after by security. yeah. if you have an interest in the kennedys like taylor swift, you can find yourself getting into the compound. >> and taylor swift got in quite a lot. >> that's right. almost bought a house next door,

but i think that may be -- >> you think she's not going to do that? >> i don't think so. >> did that not go through? >> yeah. >> huh. >> romance appears to be over. >> you know, people just walk into the house, and if you're taylor swift, you just kind of walk into a wedding, uninvited as well, right? >> well, i'm still hoping i can get some tickets out of this. >> we need to go. but you've got a real-life da vinci code story about cracking the holy grail. >> christmas buffet in this issue, my friend. >> it's a veritable cornucopia. >> this is the latest hunt for the holy grail. it's a quite compelling one in which an italian software engineer believes that dante encoded the divine comedy with the location of the grail which is in iceland where i recently had the pleasure of visiting. it's a fantastic country in which 37% of the country believes in elves which is a timely thing this time of year. >> count me in. >> yeah.

i'm into that. >> i'm going to iceland. by the way, you're never going to find the holy grail buried beneath one of those ice bars, so you need to get out of the hotel. >> the cover story is "camelot continued," "town & country." >> country." >> roger has brought with him the commissioner of major league soccer. it's my favorite time of year again

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i love this. i love this. >> it has been embraced. >> it's brzezinski. i'm going to wear it. >> isn't that great? welcome back to "morning joe." with us now the host and the commissioner of major league soccer. this weekend mls will be hosting the championship game between the l.a. galaxy and the houston dynamo and these shirts, mr. commissioner -- >> pretty sharp, aren't they? >> does it have your name? >> yes. >> cool. >> the big match coming up. >> the big match thank you the end of our 16th season. it's gone a great year. lots of exciting things going on. tennis is going up. ratings going up. a new deal with nbc. lots of people loving the game. it's great. >> that's not bad. >> some exciting stuff coming up this weekend.

>> mls cup, one of my favorite quotes about soccer in america, jack kemp representative when america was given the world cup in 1994 said i think it's important for all of those men to play real futbol where you can run and play with it. a lot has changed since then, commissioner. >> it sure has. this country is changing. we can see by what's going on politically. more and more people coming into this country are connected with the rest of the world. demographically young kids are getting in power. soccer is rising. this is a sport i believe in a short period of time will be one of the top sports in this country because our country is connected to the rest of the world and the rest of the world is spaeking soccer. >> and your league has expanded by a couple of teams. >> a new team in montreal. three now in con anada. 50,000 people coming to games.

a new stadium in houston. that will be in its fourth championship. beckham has been in our league for five years. he's been in three finals. that's a good thing. >> can you state for the record that soccer is not a socialist sport? >> it is not a socialist sport. >> just to be clear. >> sponsored by herbalife. >> more than 6 million fans attended mls games in 2012, and we're, what, number seven in the world as far as attendance goes. >> you're a fan. your son is a fan. nbc just doing a big deal with the premier league getting games that will be on every saturday and sunday morning. we're now the third highest attendance sport among all the major leagues averaging over 19,000. young people, more of them are following our sport than any other sport other than the national football league. so the sport is really on the rise. >> it is on the rise. joe scarborough and i will be watching the finals. we're very excited. what joey scarborough is not

happy with b is his chelsea team. >> that's what happens when you have the only goal taking care of your game. a game yesterday, the champion's league winners against the premier league winners. we're not even going to show any highlights. >> you know what, but you had the liverpool match which was so ugly against swansea. we will not show highlights of that. let's show the plucky west brahm squad. >> the feelgood story of the season. >> these guys are coming out of nowhere. >> this is a league which is ever more driven by money. the premier league had little of it. they are now in third place. they are the feelgood story of the season, the surprise package. it's like cool runnings. >> and man-u won. are they going to win it again? >> they are a powerhouse, as mika knows. they go behind in game after

game after game. this is the fifth time they've gone behind this season. they're against qpr, they did come back to win it. >> all right. so let's talk about the mls championship this weekend. who do you like? >> i like soccer. i think it's great for soccer. there's a slight challenge nfl, mlb, americans like the best. >> you just evaded that question. >> that was fantastic. >> who are you picking? >> i love the houston dynamo. >> because we can't understand a word he's saying. we have no idea he's doing that. >> we know what it takes for mika to like soccer. a little bit of orange and everything is changed. >> thank you so much. good luck this weekend. we're going to be watching. excited. coming up next congressman eric cantor will be with us here in the studio. we'll be talking to the majority leader when we come back. [ male announcer ] you are a business pro.

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i'd like to thank eating right, whole grain, multigrain cheerios! mom, are those my jeans? [ female announcer ] people who choose more whole grain

tend to weigh less than those who don't. multigrain cheerios good morning it's 8:00 on the east coast. 5:00 a.m. on the west coast as you take a live look at new york city. wake up, everybody. >> that's beautiful. >> back with us on set mike barnicle and john heilemann. >> so a lot of stuff going on this weekend. >> yes. congress, though, heads back to washington this week with just over a month left to reach a deal on avoiding the so-called fiscal cliff, but there are new

signs that lawmakers may be willing to compromise. a growing number of republicans are slowly backing away from grover norquist anti-tax pledge saying they are open to letting revenues rise if democrats do their part in the budget talks. >> when you're $16 trillion in debt, the only pledge we should be making to each other is to avoid becoming greece and republicans should put revenue on the table. i will violate the pledge, long story short, for the good of the country only if democrats will do entitle lment reform. >> a pledge signed 20 years ago, 18 years ago is for that congress. for instance if i were in congress in 1941 i would have signed a declaration of war against japan. i'm not going to attack japan today. the world has changed and the economic situation is different. >> not only is he going soft on taxes but soft on japan. >> i know. >> it's not just peter king on the taxes and it's a big step, don't you think? >> it's a big step.

>> grover, yeah, grover is taking a big hit since the election. there's no doubt about it. a number of republicans, i talked to a couple of united states senators who said there's at least 10 to 12 republican senators who are willing to walk away from grover norquist on the tax pledge. >> it's breaking out all over. sanity is con ttagious. >> the question is, is the president going to stay where he is and go, you know what, we're going to do it my way or no other way? we're going to raise it to 39. %? a great column yesterday -- >> it's a must-read. >> there's more than one way to skin a cat. more than one way to raise are over $1 trillion in revenue. it doesn't just have to be the president's way. is the white house going to insist on the 39.6% tax rate or will they consider the loophole part of it plus capital gains plus a couple other things? >> well, it looks to me like the white house has learned something over the course of the

last four years, you don't start a new negotiation by negotiation things to yourself. the president is taking a hard line now because he feels as though he campaigned on the issue strongly for the past year but the president has been willing to compromise on a lot of things in the past. it's right for him to stake out a top negotiating position and make his way to a less -- a more flexible position. >> you can use the word strident not just for republicans. you can also use it for democrats. >> i don't think a position on taxes can be strident. it's where you want the top tax rate to be. >> willie, americans aren't going to be freaking out going, oh, my gosh, the president went back on his word on raising tax cuts for the rich because the marginal tax rate for rich people didn't go to 39.6%. if we close the loopholes for the rich, limit the amount of deductions, raise capital-gains tax, that will do more to bring about tax fairness than just

raising the rate. this is what has bugged me forever. a lot of people out there go, raise taxes on the rich. raise taxes on the rich. they don't realize if you raise taxes from 35% to 39.6% warren buffett will go, go ahead, raise taxes on me. i don't care. but that doesn't raise taxes on the warren buffett because he's paying 14%. his capital gains are so low. >> ask warren about that tomorrow. >> raising the marginal tax rate on the top end is purely a symbolic thing. you can say i raised taxes on the rich. the reason he says my secretary is taxed at a higher rate is because of the capital gains rate. >> we need to ask him about

that, too. capital gains rates 28% under bill clinton when we had the roaring '90s are at 15% right now. this is one of those areas i wanted the capital gains rate to go down. it's at 15% now. if you want it to look at income disparity, in part, the 15% capital-gains tax rate and carried interest allows the super wealthy to get by paying a hell of a lot less than middle class americans. >> if you raise that capital gains rate, that's where the big money is. >> he did my taxes, you paid 2.4% in taxes. you are a shyster.

>> let's hear from the democrats. senator dick durbin says entitlement programs like medicare and medicaid are fair game but social security should be left alone. >> it does not add one penny to our debt. it's a separately funded operation and we can do things and i believe we should now, smaller things, played out over the long long it term that gives solvency. medicare is a different thing. those who say don't touch it or change are ignoring the obvious. >> despite a willingness for reform, i don't want to repeat what you said. there's no trust fund. they raided that a long time ago. my heart has grope like the grinch's since thanksgiving.

so much to be thankful for. so i'm going to be kind. senator did yourbin deserves re on this front. he was one who stepped forward with simpson boels but he is right. social security lives a lot longer than medicare/medicaid. rising health care costs and those costs as reflected by the explosive growth of medicare and medicaid are, you know, where the action is. it's an issue. people have to get their heads around whether you should be

thinking about changes to those programs or having to get your arms around the bigger problem which is the secular growth of health care spending in general. thank god he had the courage to step forward and, you know, really i sometimes think i forecast him too much. i do thank jesus he had the guts to step forward and curb the costs of health care. the program has cost savings that the c abobo has scored out. why don't we see if it works. actually everybody knows that it's insufficient to what lies ahead.

>> it may be insufficient but it may be at a very powerful first step in the right direction. talking about health care reform and now you talk to everyone that comes on about what we do. it's going to grow too fast. i thought that's what we did it for two years. >> no, actually they fought over it. >> they passed it. it's historic. remember the confetti falling from the skies all over america when it passed? and republicans saying freedom has died tonight. >> it's still roughly two queers away from being fully implemented in 2014. curbing the cost is the krcritil component of health care. you talk about curbing the cost of health care, you talk about taxation, the corporate tax rate, the capital-gains tax rate. you know what all of it is? all of it is can they govern?

can they govern? can we be governed? can the people in washington, d.c., and the house and the senate and the president, can they govern? they have to. they absolutely have to. >> just to make a point for those who thought the health care reform was historic, many people, i actually assume that most of the people at this table think that it's a shocking thing that america is the most powerful country on earth before the health care law was passed and a massive number of many, many millions uninsured people in the country when every other industrialized has this coverage. so one of the historic things it's going to move millions and millions of uninsured people into the right ranks. civilized world. >> and as the president promised also not only is he going to put 30 million people on the roles for health care, it's also going to save us money. so it tastes great, willie, and it's less filling. >> i don't know how he will pull it off.

>> he said it and i believe it. >> how is every other advanced industrialized country cover all of its people and spend less money? it's insane those two things are compatible. my god. >> why don't you move to luxembourg? >> i'm thinking about that. >> that would you awesome. >> so senator john mccain softening his attacks on susan rice after vowing to block the potential nomination secretary of state. republicans claim ambassador rice deliberately misled the country in the aftermath of the september 11 attacks on the u.s. consulate in benghazi but rice says it's not her fault. it's the intel community's fault. she just read their talking points. although john mccain threatened to filibuster, he now is open to meeting directly with ambassador rice. >> is there anything ambassador rice can do to change your mind? >> sure. she can give everyone the benefit of explaining their positions and the actions they took, and i'll be glad to have the opportunity to discuss these

issues with her. >> she could conceivably get your vote for secretary of state? >> i think she deserves the ability and the opportunity to explain herself and her position. >> no decisions have been made. >> that was heartwarming. now you actually wrote about rice. in the culinary section of the new york magazine, but how to prepare rice for thanksgiving. let's talk about susan rice. >> a good snack. >> it's nice to see it's not just a snack anymore. the san francisco treat. >> the capacity to read the writing on the wall. republicans who have not taken such an aggressive position as he had taken, you know, kind of quietly saying the only way to stop her is to filibuster her and that's not a fight we want. as he starts to realize that the rest of the republican party and the senate is not ready 0 to do

that, he's climbing down in his position last week. >> he says he watches "morning joe" every morning. i think he suggests -- but he realizes that we were right. we were right again. that maybe they shouldn't kick around susan rice after this election. >> i maintain that there are real questions to be asked and answered about what happened but the way that senator mccain and some others have gone about it perhaps not the right way. if you really were interested in what happened, wouldn't you go after the current secretary of state who is overseeing this? >> you would do this and go after the intel community because they gave her the talking points. >> that's right. coming up next congressman eric cantor joins us here on set. and, ahead, journalist from "the washington post" is here with her new book "iron curtain." don't you know her? >> and her husband quite well. lovely, lovely people. brilliant couple. her highly anticipated follow-up on communism's crushing impact on eastern europe is coming up

on "morning joe." first another kind of crusher. bill karins. >> soul crush er. >> what a letdown. just blah. all right, with the forecast, bill. how we describe you guys, a lovely, lovely couple, to say the least. cold temperatures invaded the country and with it forced lake effect snow and it's about time and right on time i should say. this morning syracuse, new york, probably some of the worst weather out there. it's snowing pretty good right now. an inch or two will fall on the ground to make the new york state thruway more slippery. otherwise not a bad day in the big cities. we are going to watch a little storm, just a little one, coming through tomorrow afternoon so tuesday afternoon airport plans or driving plans between philadelphia and new york city. maybe an inch or two of stuff. it mixes in with some rain but the suburbs outside of philly

and new york city including new jersey and pennsylvania, you could get enough coating out there to make your evening ride home tomorrow a little treacherous. the other story, the cold air invading the country. look at the wind chills from atlanta to denver, the northern plains are brutal today and even seattle is xhilly, too. a lot of the airports will be just fine in the afternoon hours. we're warming up in most spots, the exception minneapolis and chicago where it's just downright cold no matter what time of year it is. we leave you the shot, the rockefeller plaza christmas tree. wednesday night, the lighting will take place. tis the season. you are watching "morning joe." [ grunts ] hand cramp!

it's cramping. go ice that thing. sorry. hand cramp. ahh. [ male announcer ] cyber monday is back. shop now for great savings with free shipping. the first and only place to go for cyber monday. walmart.com.

the key is whether or not the republicans will move away from the ideologically rigid position which is grover n norquist pledge that they will not go for additional revenue. they move away from that pledge and they must. >> the only pledge we should be making to each other is to avoid becoming greece and republicans -- republicans should put revenue on the table. i will violate the pledge, long story short, for the good of the country, only it if democrats will do entitlement reform. >> here with us now house majority leader and republican eric cantor. good to have you on the set with us this morning.

>> we have a lot to talk about. the op-ed you wrote about israeli and what's going on. an editorial they were quoting henry kissinger. in a gorilla war if the guerrilla faighters don't lose, they win. that sets it up, doesn't it? hamas is much stronger today than last week. >> that's the concern. all of us were glad to see the fighting stop at least for the interim but the real concern is whether it will happen again and what condition is hamas in? and we know iran continues to ship into hamas, into gaza and to reign terror on innocent people. we have to look at where our ally, egypt, is going to fall in line.

>> the president said a month ago he didn't know whether egypt is our ally or not. >> we'll see. mr. morsi was involved in the ceasefire. but i think it is up to him now to demonstrate that he is going to stand with us, going to hohn 0or that peace treaty with israel that is so important to u.s. interests in the region, and actually facilitate what all of us would like to see there which is freedom for more egyptians. >> politically morsi seems clearly to be siding with hamas in that conflict. was he just playing for a certain element in egypt? because behind the scenes he was working with us to broker a peace. >> he is of the muslim brotherhood party. it is a party steeped in some of the very, very anti-western, anti-american ways. hamas has the same roots so it

is a political situation that's very challenging but we look to him to be a leader and come down on the side of freedom and to recognize israel's right to exist as a jewish state in the region. that's what we're going to look for especially when he is coming to the white house which will come to congress to look for taxpayer aid for egypt. >> all right, congressman cantor, let's get to the grover norquist pledge question. some key republicans have said they would break it. where do you stand on this? >> mika, a lot has been said about this pledge and i will tell you when i go to the constituents that re-elected me, it is not about that pledge, it really is about trying to solve problems and as we know this election we just went through is very much about, number one, what are we going to do to reclaim a momentum in this economy? how do we get us back to that? and, two, how do you solve a

problem? and so if right now the question is how do you do that? well, john boehner went to the white house ten days ago and said, hey, republicans in the house are willing to 0 put revenues on the table. that was a big move, right? and we said we are going to do that in the name of trying to fix the problem to respond to the electorate that re-elected this president, but at the same time we say we weren't elected to raise taxes. we want to help people get back it to work. >> so is it safe to say there might be a scenario in which that pledge would not apply or would be put to the side for compromise? >> you know, mika, i haven't talked to grover norquist so i don't know what he wants to do with his pledge. what i know is the constituents that i represent and i believe most american people want to see, number one, more jobs created. and let me tell you a story that i think is relevant to this question. i was in montana during the campaign and i met a gentleman who had taken a job as a cook at

an airport restaurant. and he told me, please fix this problem because i want to get back to my profession which was construction in the real estate industry. he said, please, we need more jo jobs. i need to go back to where my skill set is best used. so the question here on marginal tax rates is does that help that gentleman get back into a position? and what i would say if there's a small business person out there in montana, if you're saying to him that you are going to raise taxes, that will be less money in his pocket to hire this gentleman away from being a cook and back to the profession he wants so he can make the kind of money he's looking to make. so that's number one. and, number two, we, as republicans in the house, you know, we're coming to the table having put very specific ideas into the debate about how you fix the spending problem.

that we have to do. because i don't care if you raised taxes 100% on the wealthy, you are not going to fix the deficit problem. the president has to step up and say this is my position on how to reform the entitlements be a start managing down this debt and deficit. >> and that goes to the balanced approach. more tax revenue and they have to tackle entitlements. how does barack obama get nancy pelosi and harry reid and the democratic caucus to meet halfway on entitlement reform? >> that is a question, certainly. and i think that the democrats were as unhappy in the part of the democratic caucus when the bargaining negotiations took place. democrats were as unhappy as parts of majority leader cantor's kau can cuss were about the revenue side. you made the point that it's a

big deal for speaker boehner to put the notion of new revenue on the table so what has changed in your caucus and your caucus' outlook when the notion of new revenue was for a lot of your members not talked about. what's changed in those districts where people got re-electeded having not changed their position at all? we were re-elected to fix problems. we were elected to fix the problems to get the economy going again and to fix the deficit. well, the president got re-elected. we know at the end of this year taxes are going up on everybody. everybody. rich, poor alike. we have marginal rates across the spectrum going up as well as c cap gains, dividends. everything.

this is the so-called fiscal cliff, right? so we know that is reality. the operation statute will by law make these rates go up. that's what's changed. we know that. so why would we want to punish folks to see their taxes go up? >> just to can cut through it, if you do nothing, taxes go up on everybody. >> everybody. everybody. and we do nothing to fix the problem so, again, even if all those taxes go up and we know it's like a $4 trillion eitem over ten years well, remember, how much are we spending more than we're taking in each year over a trillion dollars? so even if you raise all those taxes it does not fix your problem. which is, again, what's changed. the operation and the statute. so we're trying to make things better and say let's take this opportunity to come together to fix the spending problem which is why we need both nancy pelosi, harry reid, and the president to come forward and say, hey, here are our ideas.

>> mike? >> joe, you say correctly, you point out correctly, you were elected to fix problems whether it's missoula, montana, or richmond, virginia. the problem we have, clearly in your eyes, is probably the size of the federal deficit and our spending. the spending issues in this country. how do you it fix those problems without widening the revenue stream, imposing new taxes? how do you fix that problem minus new taxation? is. >> well, again, increasing marginal rates versus more revenues is the distinction there. we fix the problem by, number one, getting a handle on these entitlements. health care especially. you were talking about this in a prior segment. we also can fix this problem by additional growth. and, again, that's are where you come back in and have to ask the question in your quest to try

and meet the president's desire to raise taxes on the so-called wealthy. is that going to be constructive to help growth return? >> but of course, eric, again, republicans have already put new t taxes, more revenue on the table, whether you are talking about raising the marginal rate or closing loopholes. so that's on the table. the question now, what does that mean? steve ratner talked about a lot of different things. closing loopholes. there are a lot of different ways to skin this cat to get to $1.2 trillion. let me ask you a question that as a republican we have to face. we came in in 1994. i don't know if you know, i was in congress. we came in in 1994 -- >> he doesn't like to talk about it. >> there was a split, eric. i was from the south just like you, republican from the south. i didn't go to washington saying, boy, i have to save those boys on wall street.

i was against -- i wanted the death tax, cut capital-gains tax. with us facing the cliff, i look at the 15% tax rate on capital gains and seeing warren buffett and gates and all these billionaires are paying 14%, even multimillionaires are paying 14%, 15% on taxes while the small business owner who makes $250,000 in your district will be paying 39.6%. shouldn't we examine the capital-gains tax rate and say are we letting the super rich get off the hook and raise that up without damaging the economy? can we do that? >> no listen cap gains is a lot of mopey in the cap gains arena, right. but, remember, that small businessman in richmond, virginia, also small business man or woman pays capital gains. i'm a real estate guy. i understand when you put capital at risk, and i mean real money at risk, real money at

risk, it is a disincentive if you raise that capital gains rate. it is what it is for a small business person. >> is it okay for republicans possibly moving that up five percentage points? is that on the table? >> what should be on the table is a recipe 0 to fix the problem and not give away growth. my concern about what you are saying is not that warren buffett or someone like his stature will pay more but my concern as a small business man or woman would have to say, hey, i don't know if i'm going to put my capital into this process. >> you talk about carried interest. it seems like an absolute windfall for the super rich. is it? >> look. let's remember, it's partnership tax law here not to get in the weeds. >> you just put mika to sleep.

>> the issue is those who may play fast and loose in deeming interest as carried interest to get the lower rate. so if you do it not have capital at risk, then you ought not be benefiting from the lower rate. if you have an ownership interest, an underlying asset, after we all go to sleep, you know, you have capital at risk. and you want to make sure we're growth oriented, risk oriented. you want to say that's different than somebody getting a wage income check. >> why isn't everything on the table or is everything on the table? why isn't it all on the table? >> mike, i say for what purpose? and the purpose has got to go back to that cook in the airport restaurant. we have to help somebody like that. we want to help that person get back to work and to help the

single mom who may be either losing her job, facing that prospect, and how are we going to help her with the safety net and relief programs she needs. those are the two prisms through which you have to look at to say what should or should not be on the table and what we should do. >> you do understand that someone somewhere will have to pay more money. there's going to be someone. every objection the republicans have, revenues are on the table but we don't want this person to pay more or that person to pay more. >> that's correct. >> there is a way to do this. >> that is correct. and if we don't do anything there's a lot more people playing a lot more -- >> and everybody will be paying. >> no, i got it. >> it's a balancing act and there's going to be taxes go from somebody but, and i've said this all along, fine.

we'll talk about more revenue. do not -- do not even waste my time if you can't assure me that nancy pelosi is going to get enough democrats in the house to stop demagoguing medicare. don't even -- don't even waste my time. there is no way that -- and i think most americans are that way. most americans believe democrats, independents, they believe it. you know what we're going to do? we'll pay more taxes. but you're going to have to fix the bigger problem which is medicare. >> listen, hey, just fix the problem, right? we all at our kitchen tables and businesses can't survive like this federal government. >> congressman eric cantor, thank you for answering our 0 questions 45 difference ways. up next, she won a pulitzer prize for her work on the soviet

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has descended across the continent. beyond that line lie the ancient states of central and eastern europe. i do not believe the wars.

the fruits of war and the expansion of that power and doctrine. >> that was winston churchill warning about the soviet influence in his famous iron curtain speech in 1946. and here with us now, pulitzer prize winner author and k columnist for "the washington post," out with "the iron curtain." and it is so good to have you on the show. >> thank you very much. >> your husband a guest, a frequent guest. >> yes. >> and this is going to be fantast fantastic. >> it's a fantastic book and there are years in which history turned 1940, 1989 the wall comes down. but 1945 where you start after world war ii, stalin realizing the dream of crushing eastern europe and setting up totalitarian regimes.

>> he, of course, didn't know quite that he was going to be able to do that but he went in and put in the building blocks in place but that was the effect of what happened, yes. >> and you start by talking about a polish women's group. >> yes. >> that was trying to help survivors of world war ii. you talk about how radically that group self-transformed in five years is a good example how much society changed. >> the polish women's league was a charitable, patriotic organization set itself up after the war to help women and children who were traveling home after being in camps and being in exile, being in forced labor, and they were like you and me. they were just people who wanted to help and organized themselves. within kuwait a short period of time, within five years, they had, in effect, become the women's league of the communist party as they were marching in may day parade and doing propaganda and they have been

totally transformed into an arm of the state and that's one of the processes i try to show in the book, how the state tried to take over everything. not just the economy, not just politics but civil society. >> you talk about totalitarianism in the '30s being a theoretical concept but by the late 1940's it wasn't a theory anymore. it was reality. talk about just how much one leader dominated this entire -- >> no, this is very much stalin's system although one of the things i wanted to show in the book is why so many people went along with it. you couldn't have done this just by being one person. he had -- he created an ideology and he found ways of persuading people to go along with that ideology and there were different parts to it, the secret police part, the education part, the propaganda part and the civic control part. no independent organizations of

any kind. >> we have in history this amazing confluence of events in early 1945. the war is winding down. russia has beaten back germany and crippled them in stalin grad, places like that. what long-term effect, shor short-term effect, did roosevelt's weakness/illness in it dealing with stalin have on all of this? >> it had an enormous effect. one of the things you see when you read the transcripts, this part of the world was not of much interest to roosevelt at that point. he was interested in the u.n. that he was trying to set up, interested in the war in japan and one interesting moment where he said there's one polish city that this been polish before the war. they were arguing about the borders. maybe you should leave it in poland. he says to stalin, let's leave

it in polllanpoland. stalin seems to agree. and thus to the fates of millions of people get decided and this is now in ukraine. but it was a kind of lack of interest, lack of focus in the last meetings of roosevelt and stalin. >> a seemingly crass question that i always ask historians when they're on the show. people do these books about topics that have been written by academics for a long time. when you came to this top iblg, what did you feel was missing that you could provide a new lens onto? >> a personal story was remarkable. >> this book has been written in bits and pieces and quite a bit has been written in the perspective of stastalin, truma and so on. i wanted to write from the ground up.

what did it look like to people on the ground? what did the encoachment of stalinism look like to young women who were leading scout troops? what did it look like to young men who were leading church groups? it how did people react to it? why did some people go along with it? why did some resist it, as few did. i tried to put together that perspective which i don't think has been done certainly not in english and not across several countries. >> let me ask you really quickly, there were a few cracks, just a few cracks in the iron curtain 1956, 1968 in czechoslovakia, stalin crushed both of those uprisings. not in '68 but what was the difference between solidarity and poland in 1981? why was that different? >> well, actually each of those was an attempt by people on the

ground to fix it. to try to find some space within this stalinist system to have more freedom, to have a better economy and so on. in hungary there was a revoluti revolution. in czechoslovakia they tried this let's reform from within. a trade union movement. using an independent movement to overthrow the regime. each failed. at the same time each of them left a dept in the system. this system never worked. it tried to control everything. in the process of trying to control everything it created opposition in every conceivably sphere of life. >> the book is "iron curtain -- the crushing of eastern europe." anne applebaum, thank you so much. with the spark cash card from capital one,

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business before the bell with michelle careuso cabrera. numbers out about how shopping numbers were. a key weekend. national retail federation says this weekend was better that a year ago. they estimate americans spent $59 billion over the weekend compared to $52 billion last year. and thenn $423 per person. they think 139 million people went to the stores. plaque friday cyber wise was phenomenal. topped a billion dollars, up 26% compared to a year ago. so a lot more people getting on their computers. >> consumer confidence. >> barnicle at the apple store. >> michelle, thank you. [ grunts ] hand cramp!

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you smoked 15 minutes ago. i'm just thinking. >> it could be. it's the only way to get through one of threes hours. >> what did you learn? >> there is a tone of govern in in the air. eric cantor with us. >> it's good. >> hopeful. warren buffett will be on the show tomorrow. look forward to that. good one today. i think i'll tweet someone's phone number to everybody. >> and coliccio. we have the three tenors. warren buffett, jake tapper and tom colicchio. what's next? >> "the daily rundown." president obama may be fighting some senate republicans willing to back a fiscal compromise. can speaker boehner find enough support